Lewes to visitors: Please stop using the beach as your bathroom

Lewes provides bathrooms at its public beaches, but in between in the residential area of Lewes Beach, some visitors are turning to the dunes to relieve themselves.
Maddy Lauria, The News Journal

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This stretch of Lewes Beach is posing a challenge for locals. With no bathrooms on the 1.5-mile stretch, neighbors say visitors are doing their business in the dunes.(Photo: Maddy Lauria/The News Journal)Buy Photo

The First Town in the First State has a major problem. Beachgoers are using private dunes and brush to go number one (and, reportedly, number two, too).

On her daily walks near her bayside home, Ruby Schaeffer said, she has seen it all: children squatting in the dunes, dirty diapers on the beach, condoms littering the sand.

At the end of every summer weekend, trash overflows from the bins near the beach, eventually making its way down the street to Schaeffer’s front yard, she said.

“They’re defecating in the dunes and urinating in the dunes,” the Lewes Beach resident said.

And what does she do when she sees someone with their pants around their ankles, relieving themself in the vulnerable dune areas that provide storm protection for nearby homes?

“What are you going to do?” she asked. She said she did confront a man who threw a diaper out of the window of his SUV one time only to watch him drive a short distance away and throw another piece of trash in the street, she said.

A block away from their home, on the short public access path, a pair of women’s underwear was found sitting next to the beach grasses.

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A pair of women's underwear sits on the edge of a public walkway that leads to Lewes Beach, in a stretch of beach with no bathrooms and no beach patrol.(Photo: Maddy Lauria/The News Journal)

With no facilities for bathroom breaks and no lifeguards patrolling the surf, Schaeffer said, it is largely up to residents to patrol the beach near their homes.

This 1.5-mile stretch of beach sits between the Lewes public beaches at the end of Savannah Road and the Roosevelt Inlet to the north.

On each end, beachgoers have access to beach-side bathrooms or portable restrooms. But in between, the residential area of Lewes Beach has become a point of contention between residents and tourists, Lewes Mayor Ted Becker said.

"People have been discourteous; there’s no doubt about it," he said. "I think, generally, most people are respectful. It only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole bag."

Because that portion of the beach along the Delaware Bay is largely privately owned land, occupied by beautiful waterfront homes on and near Bay Avenue that can cost more than $1 million, there are challenges to adding restroom facilities, he said.

"Where would you put them and how?" he said. "We may have to find some other ways."

JuneRose Futcher, a Lewes Beach resident and local photographer, said something needs to be done or it is going to get worse.

“We are so tired of what the public’s doing to Lewes Beach, we could cry,” she said. “We don’t know what [city officials] can do, but they have to do something.”

Grown men urinating along public paths, groups smoking marijuana on the beach and people sneaking behind their cars to strip down and change have become a regular sight, she said.

“They’re using the beach for free – that’s why they’re coming to the Lewes Beach residential area,” she said. “If they have to park and pay, they’re going to have a little more respect.”

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While the beach between Roosevelt Inlet and Savannah Road in Lewes is open to the public, neighbors say people taking advantage of free parking are causing problems by ignoring rules.(Photo: Maddy Lauria/The News Journal)

Cars snuggled against beach grasses and blocking driveways also has residents up in arms. The two issues are under review by a new town committee tasked with finding solutions for limited beach parking in the historic town.

As unsanitary as public urinating and defecating may be, another town official noted the larger problem with public nudity. Tourists who think they are in a quieter part of town are frequently seen stripping down alongside their cars, not knowing that they may be doing so along a road filled with retirees, neighbors said.

"We can’t have people in there destroying what we have," said Lewes Councilman Dennis Reardon, speaking on the combination of problems and potential damage to dunes that provide storm protection for those homes. "I’m sure it’s not intentional. It's just that they don’t realize it."

Lewes police Chief Thomas Spell has not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Resident Michael Parker said it is possible these reports have been blown out of proportion.

“Someone who has invested several million dollars in their property sees one person [going to the bathroom in the dunes], the story could extrapolate,” he said. “But the infrastructure is not set up to handle the influx of people here, which is only going to increase.”

John Hughes, a former secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and Lewes resident, said he has not seen instances of people using the dunes as makeshift bathrooms, but that, regardless of what they are doing and how often, people need to stay off the dunes.

"Stay out of the dunes, for God's sake," he said. "The grass is easily damaged."

In the case of coastal storms that push waves onto beaches, the dunes provide a last line of defense for the homes and businesses behind them. The grasses and other plants on those dunes help them stay in place, and when damaged, can compromise the whole system.

"They don’t have a right to be in the dunes, and they’re probably on private property," he said. "It’s trespassing; it's environmentally wrong. If you don’t provide people with basic facilities, that’s the kind of thing that’s going to happen every time."

The city’s committee reviewing parking problems – and the other issues – will meet at 5 p.m. Monday at Lewes City Hall, 114 E. Third St.